New Rochelle middle school hazing incident cuts football season short; students suspended

Nov. 30, 2012

Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle. Hazing involving the football team led to the suspension of multiple students and cancellation of the team's final three games of the season. / Randi Weiner / The Journal News, File

Written by

and Ken Valenti

NEW ROCHELLE — A hazing incident involving Isaac Young Middle School football players last month led to the suspension of multiple students and cancellation of the rest of the football season.

“It’s unfortunate they canceled the season because it punishes the whole team, but I think it sends a message that we won’t tolerate (hazing) at Isaac Young,” said Karen Hessel, whose son attends eighth grade at the school but is not on the football team.

News of the hazing comes as the community was basking in the glory brought when the New Rochelle High School football team won the Class AA state championship in Syracuse on Saturday.

The win was even celebrated by Baltimore Raven Ray Rice, a New Rochelle native and former player for the high school team, who donated 55 Nike duffel bags and compression shirts and 55 pairs of Beats By Dre headphones to the players.

Hessel said Rice attended Isaac Young before high school.

In acknowledging the 5-week-old incident Thursday, the district said police assisted in the investigation and determined that no crime was committed. Police Detective Capt. Joseph Schaller said the incident was described to police as “towel whipping.”

Principal Anthony Bongo reported it and spoke to a youth detective, Schaller said.

“It did not rise to the level that would require a police investigation,” Schaller said. “The most effective and efficient way of handling it appeared to be through school disciplinary action.”

Schaller said police did not receive any reports of hazing at the time it happened.

They are still investigating.

The district has not disclosed details of the incident, which they said happened in late October in a locker room.

In a statement released Thursday, the district said parents of students on the football team were invited Oct. 25 to a meeting with the principal to discuss the matter.

The final three games of the football season were canceled, starting with the Oct. 24 away game at Pomona Middle School, records from the Center of Interscholastic Athletics show.

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The superintendent’s office referred questions to district spokesman Paul Costiglio, who declined to comment.

Bongo, the principal, could not be reached for comment.

School board President Chrisanne Petron did not return a call.

Hessel said she was frustrated that the incident overshadowed the good things happening at the school, including climbing test scores, a literacy program, and projects the school runs that allow students to do some study at colleges.

“The school has a lot to offer,” she said, adding of the hazing incident: “I hate that it casts a shadow over the school.”

She said hazing can happen anywhere.

Indeed, three Rye High School students were accused in June of forcing several eighth-graders into a car in front of Rye Public Library and driving them to Westchester County’s Marshlands Conservancy off Boston Post Road in Rye.

There, the three held the victims for an hour and beat them raw on the buttocks and legs with a two-by-four, police said.

The Rye teens, 16 and 17 years old, were charged initially with felony assault along with misdemeanor charges.

When the most serious charges also were reduced to misdemeanors in October, the proceedings were sealed.